Frank Sawyers Archives - Richard M. Langworth

A Love of the (Hot-Water) Bottle: Wartime Anecdotes

26 July 2017 Comments 2 Comments

Living Hot-Water Bottle

Q. “Rab” Butler, Churchill’s Minister of Education (1941-45) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1951-55), recalled that Churchill once told him he was doing less for the war effort than Churchill’s grey cat Nelson, who saved fuel and power by acting as a Prime Ministerial hot-water bottle. True?

A. Yes. Butler said this in a speech to the Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill Society of Edmonton, Alberta. (This was the original Churchill Society, the only one sanctioned by Churchill personally). Butler spoke at their annual dinner on 6 May 1968.…

Churchill’s Favorite Newspapers

10 August 2012 Comments 7 Comments

Which newspapers did Churchill prefer? I am particularly interested in 1919, when he was Secretary of State for War and Air. Was he a Times or Telegraph reader? —J.W., via email

Remarkably, Churchill read all the newspapers he could lay his hands on—from The Times to the Daily Worker, the British version of which was later renamed the Morning Star.

He would do this in bed of a morning after breakfasting off a tray. He liked to discard each sheet of a newspaper to the left and right. In the 1940s this infuriated his valet, Frank Sawyers, who made a show of disapproval as he picked up the sheets.…